


Mutually satisfying weirdness

by sirona



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Barebacking, Bucky Feels, Co-Dependency, Demisexuality, Fluff, Healing, Idiots in Love, M/M, Possessiveness, Secret Marriage, a hint of D/s, a smidgeon of angst, because Bucky jesus christ, because have you met the Rogers and Barnes show, because that man deserves a warning all by himself, emotions are hard, fight then make up, mentions of trauma, post-CATWS, tony stark - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 12:57:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2192661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirona/pseuds/sirona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm lost," Stark admits. "Are you secretly marrying Steve without telling him?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutually satisfying weirdness

**Author's Note:**

> This morning I got assaulted by an idea. And that idea is, when Steve and Bucky get married, how would he wear a ring on his left hand? This was the result of that. There's a lot of personal headcanon that's got squished into this; please check the tags before proceeding.
> 
> Thanks as always to CinnamonAnna and 17Pansies for being the best enablers a gal could wish for. <3
> 
> Title from the following quote: _We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness - and call it love - true love. ~Robert Fulghum, True Love_
> 
> ETA: Now also available in Chinese, translated by Blakjc here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2551034

It has been over a year of Bucky's – he likes to think of it as reclaiming. Him reclaiming himself, and being reclaimed by the world, and by others – by a certain someone other. A year of adjusting, and re-learning things he ought to have known, and finding things about the world that make him want to keep going, other than that one person. A year of trying to internalise understanding and compassion, and trying to parse out the emotions and thought processes of others.

A whole year, and he still has no idea sometimes what goes through Tony Stark's head. It's a simple request, but here Stark Junior stands, looking at him like he has grown another head in the night. It is not unlike the look Howard used to carry, after he spent too long in the presence of the Howlies. 

"So let me get this straight," Stark says, rubbing grease-stained fingers over his ridiculous facial hair. He leaves behind a streak over his jaw; vindictively, Bucky decides not to mention it. "You and Rogers are getting married, and you didn't think to tell us? I'm hurt, Barnes, deeply hurt that you want to cheat me out of throwing you a big-ass reception to celebrate this momentous occasion of Cap finally meeting his match."

Bucky grits his teeth and takes a deep breath, praying for patience. "Steve doesn't know," he says flatly, in that dead tone he uses to discourage questions. He feels intensely vexed that it never seems to work on Stark. At most -- like now -- it shuts him up for a couple of moments before he opens his mouth again.

"I'm lost," Stark admits. "Are you secretly marrying Steve without telling him?"

Bucky wishes he had thought far enough ahead to make up something plausible, rather than letting this intense need drive him – to belong, even if just in his own head. To be claimed by someone who isn't Hydra or SHIELD or whichever museum would take him and swallow him whole. To know, just for himself, that he is Steve's; to have a symbol of that even if the rest of the world doesn't know what it means. 

" _Принадлежу,_ " he mutters, helpless to explain without flaying himself wide open for Stark of all people, which, _no_. 

Stark looks like he has not a single clue of what the hell is going on, but Bucky is fine with that, so long as he does what Bucky wants him to.

"Can you do it or not?" he growls, past patience, and Stark's eyebrows climb into his hairline, but he nods reluctantly. 

"Yeah, I mean, sure, the plates in your fingers are designed to be repaired or substituted in pieces if just one of them gets damaged. It'll be easy enough. Not sure about making it out of actual gold, you know, it's definitely not as tough as the reinforced alloy, but it'll hold, if it's just one link."

"Okay. When can you do it?"

Stark scratches the back of his head, sending Bucky small sideways looks that drive him insane and make him want to stalk out of the workshop, except that he needs this. 

"Uh, tomorrow? I need to mold the gold into shape, and it'll be a minute to slip it in. Look, far be it for me to give you advice, but are you sure you shouldn't talk to Steve about this fi--"

"No," Bucky says flatly. 

Stark closes his mouth and holds up his hands. "Uh. Okay. Okay, fine. I'll, uh, I'll do that thing for you, then."

"Thanks," Bucky pushes grudgingly through his teeth, then pivots on his heel and flees. 

Feelings. Ugh. 

–-

Two days pass before Steve notices anything out of the ordinary. They go through their routines – exercise, walks, reading, fighting assholes trying to ruin New York. Not many things peeve Bucky these days, but someone breaking his city? Yeah, not happening. Not on his watch. It's not until the aftermath of one such battle that things go all strange. Bucky has just come out of the shower, running his left hand through his wet hair to push it out of his eyes, when he looks up and finds Steve staring at him, jug of milk halfway to his mouth. His eyes are fixed unerringly on Bucky's left hand, where Bucky can sense locks of hair winding around his fingers. 

"Bucky," Steve says carefully. "Are you wearing a wedding band."

Bucky swallows and lets his arm fall. His fingers twitch, as if itching. The little gold link is nearly inconspicuous, at least visually – ever since Bucky had felt it click into place on his hand, his whole being had seemed to relax, a knot that had been pulled so tight as to warp the thread loosening just slightly, to lay comfortably in place. It's amazing, what the mind can do.

"Kind of," he allows. Words are still so hard sometimes. He thinks things, and when he goes to say them, it's like his tongue is sewn to the roof of his mouth with surgical thread. 

Steve swallows, Adam's apple bobbing so hard that it must be painful. "Did you get married to someone," he asks, sounding like he would rather throw himself in a pit of vipers than hear the answer to his question.

Bucky does not sigh, or close his eyes, or clench his fists, because those things would give him away. He stays very still, wishing he had bothered to pull on a t-shirt over his lounge pants. 

"I already was," he says. 

Steve flinches like someone struck him hard enough to break something. He opens his mouth, closes it again, and sets the milk down when the plastic creaks in protest under his hand. "Oh," he says – croaks, more like. "I didn't—you never—did I know her?"

Bucky just barely suppresses the urge to smack his face with his palm. 

"It's just a symbol," he mutters. "Makes me feel grounded. Belonging. Anyway, it's not like I could have married you before."

If Steve had looked shocked a minute ago, now he looks like a puff of breath could knock him over. "What," he whispers. "Bucky, what are you--"

Bucky does sigh that time, rubbing at the spot between his eyebrows like that could make his head stop aching. If he hadn't needed it so much, he would never have been so stupid, putting something so obvious on himself. 

"It's not because," he starts, then has to stop and clear his throat, it feels so tight. "I didn't intend for this to bind you or trap you or something. I just – it makes my mind feel calmer, looking at it. It's more that I'm bound to you, I belong to you. It doesn't have to go the other way. You can just ignore it, if--" 

He doesn't know how to say, 'if you don't want this. If you don't want me.' Because Steve has always been Bucky's most important person, but Steve didn't have many important people. Bucky was his friend. Peggy was his girl. But even after the serum, Steve had never gone out of his way to find chances to – relieve some tension, alone or with someone else. Eventually, even after all the matchmaking in the world, Bucky had just supposed Steve wasn't into that kind of thing. It happened. There were people, Bucky knew, who just weren't bothered about having sex. In this day and age, it's even more socially acceptable – a lot of things are. Even when there are so many things wrong with this world, Bucky would always be grateful for the opportunities it will give Steve to be himself. 

"You take me for who I am," he continues in a near-whisper when Steve just stares at him, mouth hanging open. "I'll always be grateful for that, Steve. I know I'm not your choice. But I also know that I'll never belong to someone the way I belong to you. So. I needed to-- have it in a way that I could see."

Steve's eyes, those beloved blue eyes, slide between Bucky's face and his metal hand. He seems to unfreeze, his whole body jolting as if coming to life. He takes two steps to close the distance between them, then takes Bucky's hand in his and bringing it up so he can stare at it some more. Then he looks up.

"Bucky Barnes, I could kill you," he says. 

Bucky's whole body goes cold, in a way he remembers so very vividly even when so many memories are lost forever to him. He wishes this was one of them. But Steve doesn't sound angry, just – maybe a little annoyed. Bucky doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing, waiting for more clues to appear. He doesn't have to wait long – he never does, with Steve.

"You know what I've always hated about us? The way you always gotta make all these decisions without consulting me. What the hell makes you think you aren't my choice? Goddamn it, Bucky, I have loved you since we were ten years old. I wanted to spend my whole life with you. When you fell, I know it sounds pathetic, but my life was over. I don't remember what breathing was like in all the time that passed before you found me in DC and I tore off your mask and found you right back. 

"You think I don't want to marry you? Christ, Buck, I'd drag you to a church _tomorrow_ , if I thought you might want it."

Bucky's heart is beating hard and fast, electrified by the look in Steve's eyes. "But," he starts, after a long moment of his mouth hanging open. "But not like, I know you don't do that sort of thing. I don't want to force you into anything, Jesus, Steve, that's the last thing I want. Knowing you love me is enough."

"Not like what," Steve says. Bucky knows that tone. It's the tone of 'where do you think you're going', and 'drop the weapon and put your hands in the air', and 'if you imagine even for a second I'm eating your dinner, too, you've got another thing coming, jerk'. But Bucky knows this one, and he isn't afraid.

"Not like you want to fuck me. I know you, Steve. You don't have to pretend with me."

Since they started talking, Steve's fingers have been tracing Bucky's metal hand with all the care in the world. Bucky wants to curl into that touch, to have Steve pet him like this forever. Now, Steve's grip tightens, thumb pressing hard over the golden band. Bucky's knees go weak; it feels like claiming, like possession. Heat pools through his body, weaving into twin spheres in his chest and lower belly. Steve walks him backwards until his back hits the far wall, keeps pressing closer until the front of his body touches Bucky's from chest to knee. 

Then, Steve swoops in and kisses him like he is the only source of air in the world. Bucky's mouth falls open in surprise, and then in supplication when Steve's tongue pushes between his lips to brush his. Hands close around Bucky's wrists and bring them up, pinning them on either side of his head. Bucky's body bows without conscious instruction, trying to bring Steve closer. His breath is short and ragged, failing to fill his lungs, but Bucky doesn't care, because nothing in his life has ever felt as good as this. Steve kisses him like letting go is abhorrent and wrong, and Steve isn't doing it, and no one can make him. 

"How can you still be such an idiot," Steve gasps when he pulls back, unknown minutes later. 

"But you never--" Bucky tries. His voice is hoarse and raw, and Bucky revels in it. 

"I never did, because from the time when I was thirteen, I have only wanted you. No one else. And you didn't want me. Not then. Not later. Why now?"

Bucky closes his eyes and clenches his teeth. "I always wanted you," he growls. "But you were target enough as it was. I would never do anything to compromise you."

"I was already compromised," Steve yells.

"Well, what about Peggy?" Bucky yells right back. 

"That was flirting! I'm shocked you of all people didn't realise that! Peggy was too kind to tell the skinny little guy to take a hike! It was easy talking to her!"

"You never said anything!"

"You never looked like you wanted anything more than to take care of me! I thought I was a burden you'd be happy to cut loose!"

"Hey, fuck you, pal, I've _never_ said that, how can you, you're such an asshole, you know that?"

"I'm sorry, it was too much, I wanted too much, it was easier to think that than face the truth!"

"You are an idiot! Why are you shouting?"

"Why are you?!"

Bucky realises he is panting, and his face is burning. Steve doesn't look any better. Flushed is a gorgeous look on him, lips pouting open and slick with what Bucky remembers is his own saliva. He wants to kiss Steve again immediately, and never stop. 

"How could you think I wouldn't want you?" Steve whispers achingly. Bucky's chest tightens, as if a spike has gone through it. 

"Why would you? I'm ruined. I'm not the Bucky you once knew."

"Not ruined. Maybe a little broken. I can help with that. The others, too. You've been letting us help."

"I didn't want to be alone again."

Steve presses closer, tucking his face in Bucky's neck. His hands, wonderfully, don't leave Bucky's wrists. 

"You don't ever have to be," he says quietly, lips brushing against Bucky's skin. Bucky shivers violently, head jerking backwards to bang against the wall. His dick, previously dormant, is suddenly excruciatingly sensitive, too much even in the soft, loose pants. Still, Bucky cants his hips closer, craving the friction of Steve's body. Steve exhales sharply, shuddering against him. 

"Please," Bucky whispers. "If you think you could—if you can bring yourself to—I—please, Steve."

Steve raises his head, eyes suddenly flashing.

"Let's get one thing straight," he says, and oh, it's Captain Rogers' voice, oh God, oh, shit. "There will be no 'bringing myself' to do anything. I want you, Bucky. Jesus Christ, you don't even realise – I _always_ want you. I want you so much, it's an empty pit inside. I want to touch you all the time. I want to walk up to you in the middle of a crowded room at one of Tony's fundraisers, and get on my knees, and unzip your superbly tailored pants, and suck your dick into my mouth. I want to feel you open me up, take me apart from the inside out. I want to put my dick inside you so much I can't breathe with it sometimes. Earlier tonight, if you'd let me, I would have dragged you into that empty alleyway and bent over and begged you to take me."

Bucky actually cannot breathe. There is a vice around his chest that won't let anything in other than Steve's words in that low, rumbling, hypnotic voice. His eyes are opened so wide that even the dim light hurts a little, and he needs Steve's skin on his so much that he doesn't care if he ever breathes again, so long as he gets to have that. 

'Will you fuck me," he asks breathlessly. "Please. I need. I feel. Your hands."

Steve's eyes flicker sideways, to where he is still pinning Bucky's wrists. His right thumb is rubbing over the golden band on Bucky's left hand entirely unconsciously. Bucky's hands are loose, fingers curled in a little. He feels so free somehow, to not have to hold himself up, to not have to struggle through that alone. Steve has him. Steve has him, and it's nothing Bucky ever expected to have, but it's everything he could ever want. 

Steve leans in again and crushes his mouth to his. Bucky lets him in on a moan, delighted. 

"Yes," Steve murmurs into his open mouth. "Yes. Of course. Always."

Time flow goes a little strange for Bucky after that. When he looks up again, he is spread out on Steve's bed, fully naked and with Steve's thigh pressed deliciously to his cock. 

"How do you want this?" Steve asks. Bucky never knew Steve's voice could sound like this, deep and seductive and a little amused and full of dark promises. It makes something inside him tighten in anticipation, in desire. He turns in Steve's arms, rocking up on his elbows and knees, presenting himself to Steve's gaze. Steve's hands runs down his back, over his sides, covetous and worshipful at the same time. 

"Okay," Steve says. Bucky doesn't think he could speak; his voice is lost somewhere in the knot of want and desperation and need, and all he has to try and put his point across is his body. He bows his head, arching his hips a little, hoping to entice.

"Jesus," Steve breathes. His fingers trace the line of Bucky's spine, all the way between his buttocks, to the hole that contracts sharply when it's touched, begging to be filled. "Okay. Okay, Buck. I've got you."

A kiss is pressed to his side, and another at his hip before, terribly, Steve stops.

"Uh. When I said—say, you don't happen to have some slick in your room, do you?"

Bucky's head falls to Steve's pillow, and he breathes in traces of Steve's shampoo while he muffles a laugh. Incredibly, the warm feeling inside him intensifies instead of fading, and he knows, he knows with everything he has that he loves Steve, so much more than he cares about himself.

"What happened to 'always be prepared'?" he mutters. 

The sharp sting of the slap on his ass makes him choke on his next breath, and let out a moan the likes of which he had honestly forgotten could come out of him.

"No sass from you, Sergeant," Steve says dryly, and sweet Jesus, Bucky is actually going to come all over himself any second now. So much for 'non-existent sex drive due to trauma', Wilson.

"There's some body lotion in the bathroom," Bucky manages, sounding destroyed. He needs Steve inside him, right now.

Steve is fast, always is these days. He is off the bed and back within seconds, and then there are cool slick fingers pressing inside Bucky's body, implacable and wonderful.

"I thought you didn't know how to do this," Bucky gasps, forehead resting on his folded arms. 

"The internet is really extraordinarily useful," Steve replies easily, like he doesn't have two—no, three now, three fingers inside Bucky's ass, pushing in and out with just the right rhythm and driving him to distraction.

"Did it turn you on, watching those things?"

After a slight pause, Steve admits, "No. It was more an intellectual exercise, to confirm a theory."

Bucky's heart falls. If Steve isn't into this--

"Shush," Steve says. "I can hear you thinking from here. Look, come up for a second."

Hatefully, the fingers slip out of him as Steve's clean hand urges him to straighten. Bucky turns, taking in Steve's feverish eyes and his hair matted down with sweat at the front, then trails his gaze down Steve's astonishingly beautiful body all the way to his dick, thick and flushed and standing out from a thatch of curls at the base. As he watches, Steve' abdomen twitches and it sways, hard enough that the tip leaves a slick spot on Steve's skin. 

"Does this look like 'not interested' to you?" Steve asks quietly. His chest is flushing under Bucky's unwavering gaze, but he doesn't fidget, doesn't move at all, just lets Bucky look his full. 

"But—I don't understand," Bucky says. It comes out much too close to a whine for his comfort, but most of his mind is focused on not bending down and taking that gorgeous length into his mouth. 

Steve smiles at him softly. "It's you, Buck. It's only ever happened around you. When I say you are the only one for me, I mean it. I love you. I love you so much."

Bucky does bend in this time, but it's to take Steve's mouth, wrap his arms around Steve's shoulders and pull Steve in to lie on top of him, winding his legs high around Steve's hips. 

"Love you," he murmurs against Steve's skin, kissing the corner of his mouth, his cheek, the edge of his jaw. "Please put your dick inside me now."

"You want me to..." Steve says, voice shaking a little. He catches Bucky's hands again, curls his fingers around his wrists, and pins them down to the bed on either side of the pillow. 

Bucky's hips arch and cant, and there is the head of Steve's cock, and Bucky makes himself relax and let it slip inside him. He has only done this once, just once on the edge of a small French village, and he'd come out of it feeling like something unclean, like a traitor. He hadn't known what it meant then. Now, when he looks at Steve's gorgeous, expressive face above him, he thinks he understands. 

Steve's breathing is laboured, and there is a tension in his body that has it strung tight as a piano wire. "God, Bucky," he moans, a little hitch at the end that turns Bucky's blood from hot to boiling. "You can't even, God, the way you feel. To know that you want to be mine. I never thought, I never knew I could feel like this. And God help you, I want to make you mine. I want to mark you. I want to wear your ring. I want to look across a crowded room, and point you out, and say really loudly, 'See him? He's mine.'"

On the words, Steve's hips jerk forward and he drives himself deep into Bucky's body, deeper than anything but Steve has ever reached before. His hands tighten, painting bruises on Bucky's wrists that make him moan and try to angle his hips higher, take more inside him despite the sting.

"Please," he breathes, all he can manage. Steve starts moving on top of him, fucking him in earnest, and it's unlike anything Bucky has ever felt before. He feels surrounded, taken, _claimed_ ; he feels like Steve is wrapping him up inside himself, holding him close, keeping him safe, whole, giving him the space to be whoever he turns out to be.

"I love you," Steve moans. "Oh, God, Bucky, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I think I'm going to, it's too good, I never knew, please let me, let me--"

"Yes," Bucky shouts, shocked by the intensity of how much he wants this. "Yes, Steve, come on, come inside me."

Steve's movements go from barely controlled to frantic, short, stabbing thrusts that set out sparks inside Bucky's body with every shift. Steve's hips pin him open, and Steve's face is buried in his neck again, and Steve's lips and tongue paint wet trails over his skin, and really, Bucky doesn't think he'll last very long himself. 

When Steve comes, his grip on Bucky's wrists turns crushing; he pours himself into Bucky's channel, straining as if he wants to push his seed further in. There is no stopping it. On the tail end of that thought, Bucky's dick contracts against Steve's stomach and blows, staining them both. Steve slumps on top of him, pressing him deeply into the bed. Bucky wants to disappear into that space, sated and safe. 

He surfaces to lips tracing his shoulder, his clavicle, a heavy weight in the middle of his chest. Steve's head is pillowed on his sternum, an arm thrown over his middle. Steve's thumb is massaging Bucky's right wrist, probably meaning to soothe but bringing up the slightest sting again. Bucky wants to purr. 

"Would that be all right, do you think?" Steve asks quietly. "If I wore a ring, too? It would – Buck, I'd love to make it official, but only if you feel up to it."

Bucky's heart slams in his chest. He almost asks, 'You want to?', but doesn't feel up to another shouting match just then. 

"Yes," he says. "Yes. More than all right. And yes to the official part, too."

He can feel Steve's lips curve against his chest. "Did Tony make yours?"

"Yeah. Actually, he told me I should just tell you. I can't believe I should have taken emotional advice from Tony Stark."

"He's smarter than he looks," Steve agrees. "Maybe he'll make one for me, too."

The thought of Bucky's ring on Steve's finger is-- Wow.

"Yeah. We can ask him. That'll make him disgustingly happy, I'm sure."

"What, to be right? Yeah, I'll bet."

Silence, when it falls between them, is easy. Calm. Peaceful. Bucky remembers that it used to be like this a lot, in the last years before the war, when it was just the two of them.

"Listen," Steve says, low, intimate. "I found a quote, a while ago. I took it hard at the time, but that was before we got you back. It's by this real classy lady, Rita Rudner. She said, 'I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.' And you know what? I'm going to love being married to you, too."

"Wow, you're a sap."

"Shut up, Barnes. You married me without telling me."

"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?"

"What are spouses for?"

\---

To Bucky's profound lack of surprise, the next morning Tony Stark takes one look at them and rolls his eyes so hard he must have sprained something.

"Finally. I told you to just talk to him, Barnes. The two of you have the emotional maturity of tape worms."

"I think that's the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard you say, Tony," Steve says easily. He isn't even blushing, the jerk. 

Stark sticks his tongue out at him, thus effortlessly proving Steve's point. 

"Swing down by the workshop later. I've got a little gold-plated piece of reinforced titanium with your name on it. No, it literally has 'Steve Rogers, my hunk of burning love' etched into it. 'Cause I'm nice like that, and this, I could see this coming a league off."

Steve covers his eyes with one of his huge hands. (Bucky does not shudder. Okay, maybe a little.)

"Why am I friends with you again?" Steve asks despairingly.

"Two words. Reinforced bed frame. No, that's three words. 'Reinforced floor' are the two I was thinking about. Also, here's another one: soundproofing. I think we'll all be grateful, I mean, Jesus, no offence, but seriously, no one wants to hear that."

Bucky bites the inside of his cheek, thinking of Steve's comments about fundraisers and blowjobs. He thinks that scandalising Tony Stark might just turn out to be the best hobby he has ever taken up.

**Author's Note:**

> "Принадлежу" -- I belong.


End file.
